Steven Havill - Double Prey

“Herb always called this ‘the window,’” Bill Gastner observed as Estelle maneuvered the vehicle through, less than an inch clearance beyond the side mirrors. “He’s lost a lot of paint off his trucks and livestock trailers in this particular spot.”

The trail turned north, the country opening up to prairie that rolled in gentle waves like a tan blanket snapped not quite flat. They could see Bender’s Canyon Trail winding ahead of them, up the rise of open country.

“Freddy probably puts more miles on that ATV of his than any other kid in the world,” Estelle said.

“I admire him,” Gastner said. “You know, most kids are content to rod it up and down the streets, or dust up vacant lots. This kids goes on adventures . I love it. If I wasn’t so goddamn fat and old and creaky, I’d buy me one and chase after him.”

“I’m starting to wish that someone had gone with him,” Estelle added.

The two-track climbed the rise, and then bordered a stand of dense juniper and scrub as another deep arroyo closed in from the northeast. A small foundation, now nothing but a uniform line of limestone rocks emerging a few inches from the dirt, edged the runty junipers and creosote bush. An old corral, the posts gray and smooth, enclosed an area behind the foundation, and the remains of a fence meandered off into the distance. Various rusted machinery parts, a scattering of cans, and the tiny cab of an ancient truck marked a spot where someone, sometime, had felt that he’d found paradise.

“Morris Trujillo’s grandfather,” Gastner said, and Estelle looked at him with amusement. “Efugio. He came back from the Philippines in 1943, deaf in one ear and with a plate in his skull. He tried to live here for a couple years, couldn’t make it work, and then moved into town.”

Estelle surveyed what was left of the tiny homestead. “And left his truck behind.”

“We could make up all kinds of interesting stories about why that happened,” Gastner laughed. “It’s a 1928 Ford.”

“And you know that how?” The vehicle fragment included little besides the firewall and one fender.

“I found a number plate on the firewall.”

“Are those your tracks?” She nodded at a set of vehicle tracks imprinted in the soft soil near the corral.

“Nope.” The road narrowed even more, squeezing along the arroyo.

“Next century storm, the arroyo is going to chew a chunk out of the two-track,” Gastner said. Just to the east, practically under his elbow, the arroyo yawned deep and wide, a great gouge across the prairie. “Herb was telling me that most of this was cut in one night, back in 1955.” He glanced at Estelle. “Can you imagine a rain that hard? And that’s something else that Reubén might talk about in his journal. He was here then.”

“Only from time to time,” Estelle said. “He built his cabin over off the county road in 1956.”

“Have you considered translating these?”

“I do. I just haven’t done it yet.”

“Maybe Teresa would find it interesting.”

“I don’t think so. She can read them effortlessly enough as it is, but she doesn’t spend a lot of time looking back at family history. History of the world, sure, but not family. I think it makes her a little sad.”

“Remarkable woman. That’s about all I do these days, is look back.”

Estelle eased the truck onward, and they nosed up a sharp rise just north of the homestead. Just as they crested the knoll, she spiked the brakes and the SUV jarred to a halt. They faced a swale where the two-track swooped down through a graveled wash that joined the main arroyo. They could see tracks from the ATV, so close-set and characteristic, cross the wash and shoot straight up the other side. Estelle leaned forward, hands locked together on top of the steering wheel.

A second set of four-wheeler tracks were also visible just on the near side of the rise facing them, tracks that swerved erratically toward the crumbling arroyo edge.

Both the red ATV and its driver lay at the bottom of Bender’s Canyon.

Estelle sprinted back to the Expedition, yanked open the door, and grabbed the mike off the bracket.

“PCS, three ten.”

The five heartbeats before dispatch responded seemed an hour.

“Three ten, go ahead.”

“PCS, ten fifty-five, one adult male.” She looked across through the open passenger door at Bill Gastner, who was standing on the shoulder of the two-track, scanning the arroyo bank. “We’re about four miles off County Road 14 on Bender’s Canyon Trail. An ATV off the road.” The ambulance was at least an hour away.

“Ten four.”

“Ten twenty-one in about three minutes.”

Directly in front of them, the arroyo bank was sheer, the edges crumbling. Gastner pointed to the south. A large juniper, the trunk thick and gnarled, leaned precariously from the bank, its roots fighting for a hold against the continuous undermining of erosion. “Maybe there,” he said. “Maybe.”

The last bout of erosion had been deflected by a root mass, gouging down through the bank to a large projection of rock. Estelle surveyed the bank for a moment, then scrambled down, using the roots as handholds. Hand over hand to the rock step was easy enough, leaving only an eight foot slide down the gravel and sand arroyo skirt to the bottom.

She slid in a shower of sand and gravel, keeping her balance on feet and rump. At the bottom, she stood quietly for a moment, surveying the scene ahead of her.

The motionless figure lay on his face, one leg oddly twisted, his right shoulder smashed against a bald slab of bedrock at the bottom of the arroyo. Estelle recognized the slender form immediately. If Freddy Romero had been wearing a helmet, it hadn’t done much good. It now lay in the sand thirty feet away, the force of the crash fracturing the face shield.

Freddy’s eyes were open, staring at the gravel. The undersheriff touched the side of his neck just forward of where the helmet strap would cut and felt nothing but cold, dry skin.

The ATV, fenders, handlebars and even fuel tank twisted and bent, lay inverted just beyond the body.

Estelle squatted on her haunches for a moment, one hand resting lightly on Freddy Romero’s left shoulder. Then she pulled her cell phone out of its belt holster.

“Gayle,” she said when the dispatcher answered, “We have a fatality here. It looks like Freddy Romero somersaulted his four-wheeler into an arroyo. I’ll need Linda out here ASAP, and Dr. Perrone. And if you’ll contact APD, they’ll make contact with George and Tata for us.”

“Oh, my,” Gayle murmured.

“And you might tell the EMTs that they may have to come in from the north, from State 17, through Waddell’s ranch. I’m not sure their unit will make it in here on the south fork of the trail.”

“Matty Finnegan knows that country pretty well. I’ll let her know. What’s your exact twenty?”

“I would guess about four and a half miles in from County Road 14 on Bender’s Canyon Trail. We’re just a quarter mile or so beyond what they call ‘the window,’ and that’s where the ambulance may have trouble.”

“We’ll find you. Freddy was alone?”

“It appears so.”

“Oh, my,” Gayle said again.

“’Oh my’ is right,” the undersheriff sighed, and switched off the phone. She turned to look back up at Gastner, who stood a step back from the arroyo edge, hands on his hips.

“He didn’t move much,” he said.

“No.” She stepped carefully back, seeing the way Freddy’s left hand had clawed briefly at the gravel, what looked like a single spasm. Slipping her fingers under the young man’s wrist, she felt the characteristic resistance of rigor. “I would guess all night, and then some,” she said. “He was out here yesterday afternoon, maybe. Could have been.” And nobody knew , she thought. We all thought mischief, and here you are, all by yourself.